Tubular Bells for Two

Adelaide Festival Theatre, Dunstan Playhouse until 18 February

Review by Honey B

The pure effort and passion that musicians Daniel Holdsworth and Aidan Roberts put into recreating Mike Oldfield's classic Tubular Bells live was breathtaking.The crazy multi-instrumentalists have created a raw, heart-pounding experience as they leapt across the stage to play the various 22 instruments to bring Oldfield's glorious opus to life.The original 1973 masterpiece took more than 30 musicians to perform it and to see just two pull off this mammoth task was an amazing experience.As much as bringing this piece to the eyes and ears of old and new fans alike, Holdsworth and Roberts have made it their own as they race around the stage barefoot to play each different instrument or record a loop.It was also easy to see the love for this piece that each madcap muso has and the pure connection the duo have to each other and that they need to have to pull off this experience.The expressions on their faces were priceless and the audience was living through them and through the music.We were on the journey through every note. Yes, there was a section where a bit of “brain freeze’’ set in with an interesting keyboard piece added, but most in the audience would not have picked the difference.Holdsworth and Roberts added a few cheeky comments when they had to re-set for “side two’’ and play their “last’’ song – a piece that went for a mere 30 minutes!All up Holdsworth and Roberts' Tubular Bells experiment was powerful, exhausting and jaw-dropping. A technical and musical tour de force